This Could Get Messy
by anne-writes
Summary: Snape's POV, he likes Hermione, a year or two after the FB. Gets pretty smutty, but some cute character exploration too. In my opinion, Snape isn't very OOC at all. Hermione probably is.
1. In Which Our Hero Is Distracted

**_If it weren't your maturity none of this would have happened  
_****_If you weren't so wise beyond your years I would have been able to control myself  
_****_If it weren't for my attention you wouldn't have been successful  
_****_If it weren't for me you would never have amounted to very much._**

_Hands Clean, by Alanis Morissette_

**:::::**

Severus Snape sat at his desk, staring at the door she had just disappeared through. Fuck. He'd messed up. Sighing, he looked back down at the journal article he had been finishing when she asked some inane question that she knew the answer to. He knew it was just a way for her to make conversation, but it was a bad habit that she should break. He couldn't sit around and listen to her idiotic chatter day in and day out. Except that he could, and more importantly, he _would_, with no further encouragement needed. He would listen to her read the dictionary, if he could just look at her unnoticed.

Hermione Granger had approached him, a year after the Final Battle, asking for an apprenticeship. He had (obviously) stopped working at Hogwarts, and the nervous respect he garnered had allowed him to open up a full laboratory in the far north of England and spend his time testing and researching. The Minister had grudgingly given him an Order of Merlin (second class), and he had attended the ceremonial ball to accept it with a scowl on his face. That's where she had approached him, her curly hair already rebelling against the carefully smoothed waves, her deep blue dress deceptively modest. Anyone else might have looked at her and seen a demure gown, made of matte navy silk, with a row of button that ran all the way up to her collarbone, where a small collar of heavy lace stood around her pale neck. The cap sleeves were of the same lace, the color startlingly dark against her pale skin, and the waist dropped out into three long flounces that stopped just below her knees. But the dress fit her perfectly, emphasizing her curves and making her skin glow. He hadn't meant to offer her the position, preferring instead to remain secluded in his little house on the border of Scotland. But he had nodded, trying desperately (and failing) not to drop his eyes to her shoulders, her breasts.

So she had rented the house down the lane, and he suddenly had a person arriving at his house every day, rain or shine. He saw her every day except Sundays, but sometimes she invited him over for lunch anyway. He usually declined, yet occasionally would dig out a satisfactory bottle of wine and walk quickly to her house. It was usually in slight disarray, a fact that both bothered him_ (she couldn't even manage to keep her cottage clean?)_ and gave him a strange, unexplained longing feeling deep in his chest.

If she had acted like a child, maybe he could have resisted. If she had been silly and overly talkative as she had been in school, perhaps he could have controlled his wayward mind and been content alone in his bed. But she was so damn mature, so bloody thoughtful, that he found himself glancing up at her as they worked only to realize when he looked back down that he had actually been watching her for over an hour. Just watching her, the careful way she labeled vials, the exacting standards she had for the preparation of ingredients. He would lay awake at night, thinking about the way her fingers had wrapped around the stirring rod, the way she sucked her quill when she wrote, the concentrated expression on her face as she dealt with a particularly volatile ingredient.

He took a strange sort of satisfaction in the fact that he was the one who was making her into _somebody_. Somebody important. He had no doubt that she would be, she was already making such brilliant observations and coming up with original ideas for better ways to brew potions, more effective ingredients. _She was_ _going places_, he thought with a wry twist of his mouth. Such meaningless words in common usage, but they were more than applicable to her, because she would doubtless leave him and go someplace far, far away, when she had earned her Mistress title. She would be great someday, and he would still be alone.

So now, here he was, snapping at her for some inane reason, and attempting to justify it to himself so that he wouldn't feel so bloody _guilty_. Not guilty for being mean, but guilty for wanting her so badly.


	2. In Which There Is A Pleasant Surprise

_**Oh, this could be messy,  
**__**But you don't seem to mind  
**__**And oh, don't go telling everybody  
**__**And overlook this supposed crime.**_

_Hands Clean, by Alanis Morissette_

**::****:****::**

He couldn't stop himself from standing and following her out the door, abandoning the article. It could wait.

She stood in his kitchen, hands clutching the edge of his countertop as she looked out the window. He could tell from the rise and fall of her shoulders that she was taking deep, slow breaths. She was pissed.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his work robes. She didn't turn around, but nodded curtly.

"You know you can always ask me questions. I was just trying to get something done, so I snapped at you," he continued, turning to return to his lab, to sit behind his desk again and imagine her. That was the reason the article had gone unfinished until so close to the due date, anyway.

She turned around. "Wait," she said softly. When he turned around there was an expression he didn't recognize on her face, and a darkness to her eyes that he hadn't expected. Maybe she wasn't angry after all. He stilled, and waited for her to continue.

Instead of saying anything, she reached for her collar and deftly unbuttoned her work robes, dropping them unceremoniously to the floor. He felt his jaw go slightly slack. What the hell was the bint doing?

She tilted her head to the side, watching him, before grasping the hem of her plain white tshirt and pulling it over her head, dropping it to the ground along with her robes. She still stood, leaning almost languidly against the counter behind her, still watching his face.

"What the _hell _are you doing?" he shouted, slightly more high-pitched than he would have preferred.

"I've seen you watching me, these past months. At first, I thought I was mistaken, but now…" she shrugged. "Now I'm pretty certain."

He hadn't realized he had taken a step forward, but he had. "Certain of what?" oh, fuck, his voice was rapidly approaching a castrato's range.

"You want me, yeah?" she said, and she slid two fingers along her collarbone.

He couldn't say anything. He couldn't even move, he was frozen. It was like a bad dream, being stuck in concrete as something you desperately want dances in front of you. Or strips in front of you, rather.

He managed to drag his cemented body the few yards until he was standing before her. He was absolutely he was embarrassing himself with the obvious amount of interest his lower body was showing in these proceedings, and he felt his cheeks pinken slightly. Realizing that he was blushing caused him to flush further, and he turned his head to the side.

He looked down at her, at where her small hands had begun on the buttons to his robes, quickly pulling the cloth-covered toggles through their loops, before pushing the bulk from his shoulders, letting it pool on the floor. She began on his shirt buttons, her arms pressing her hardly-covered breasts deliciously together as she reached forward. As she finished the task, sliding her hands under the shirt and pushing it over his wiry shoulder and dropping it on the ground, she ran her hands over his chest.

When she brushed the flat of her palm over one of his darkened nipples, pausing to watch his face as his breathing quickened, he realized what was happening, what she was seeing, and he took a large step backward, pushing her hands off him.

"Stop, this isn't— you don't have to do this. I'll stop watching you, you don't have to do anything," he finished lamely, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest.

She frowned slightly, stepping forward, and running on finger down the line of thick black hair that led from his navel to the waistband of his trousers.

"I don't have to do anything," she confirmed with a nod, sliding one hand around his back as the other stole up and buried itself in his hair. "But I'd prefer if you kept watching." She tugged his face down to hers and he finally, _finally_, felt her lips on her own. How many hours had he spent wondering how she would taste, whether she would bite down on his lip just like that? If she would use her hands to pull him closer to her, exactly how she just did?

He couldn't help kissing her back, couldn't stop the tidal wave of emotions that rushed over him all at once, all of which confirmed that _yes_, he should keep kissing her, and _no,_ he should never stop.

He felt his hands moving of their own accord, unfastening her bra and pulling it off, then reaching between them to pull at the fastenings of her skirt, unzipping it and pushing it to the ground. She mimicked his actions, tugging his belt undone, pulling the buttons of his trousers through the buttonholes. When she finished, she impatiently pushed her hands down under his boxers, shoving both down at once until they pooled around his ankles. Her fingers wrapped around him, one hand tracing the outline of the head, the other sliding lower, measuring his girth (he couldn't help but take a _bit_ of pride when he realized her fingers almost didn't fit around him) before cupping his sack in one palm.

He pulled his mouth from hers and pressed his face into the crook of her neck, groaning lowly. He felt her smile as she kissed his shoulder, biting lightly, sucking hard to mark his skin.

He pulled away from her brilliant hands, eliciting a quick warning tug on his shaft from her, and another deep groan from him. He almost leaned into her again, but had the foresight to step back, bending over to yank at his shoes. Successful, he pulled off his socks and stepped out of his trousers and pants, and looked up at her.

She had pulled off her shoes and tights and underwear, and was leaning against the counter, breathing hard, hair disheveled, with such a _hungry_ look on her face that he grew even harder, if that was possible. He quickly closed the gap between them, barely pausing as he hoisted her onto the counter. Even when she was seated thus, he still stood a good ten centimetres above her. Having never considered the benefits of being much taller than average, he vowed to never curse the irritatingly low counters again.

He dropped his fingers between them, pressing into her, paying her back for her torture. When he felt how wet she was, he kissed her swiftly, amazed that she seemed to want this almost as badly as he did. She abandoned the slow, insistent tugging on his length and wrapped her arms around his waist, gasping into his collarbone before biting sharply. That earned her a long finger suddenly pushed inside her, his thumb circling her clit with alarming dexterity. She moaned softly, raggedly, before reaching down and grasping him firmly and pulling him to her center.

He had never been a man who needed to be told anything twice, and he removed his fingers from their delicious exploration and grasped her shoulders firmly, leaning her back against the wall. He took a moment to appreciate the view, her body sprawled across his countertop, sunlight from the window dancing across her skin, his erect cock pressing lightly against her core.

She wound her fingers into his hair and pulled his face to hers, capturing his mouth in a searing kiss. He bit her lip as he thrust home, burying himself to the hilt. Their breaths caught at the same time, and his ragged inhalation was audible. He began to move, first short, shallow thrusts, but when she unwrapped her legs from his waist and pulled her feet up so they were resting on the counter, bent legs parted widely, he began to pound into her in earnest. He was bent over her, one arm braced on the countertop on either side of her shoulders, and she was leaning forward, fingers digging hard into his shoulders to steady herself.

He wasn't sure if he could hold out much longer, not with her, and slid his left arm under her back as he leaned her back, pulling his free hand between their bodies and using his thumb to press and circle in time with his hammering thrusts. She inhaled so sharply it sounded almost like a scream, and if he hadn't been concentrating so hard on _not finishing_, he might have smiled.

With a scream (a real one, this time), he both felt and heard her climax, her nails digging harder into his shoulders and dragging slightly, as he rode her orgasm out, feeling her cunt tightening around him, the increased pressure incredible on his aching cock. With a shout to compliment her next scream, he came, feeling the release wash over his body like a wave, his thrusts slowing, becoming jerky, before stilling altogether. Suddenly, as though awaking from a deep sleep, his mind was aware of his calves burning, his lungs struggling to take in air fast enough to cool his overheated body, his biceps screaming with the effort he had just forced them to exert. The sweat covering his body couldn't accurately be called a sheen, he was practically soaked. As if hearing his thoughts, a drop fell from his brow onto her stomach. He slid his gaze up, from that droplet, to her breasts, the flush covering her chest and face, her curly hair impossibly mussed, and finally registering the remarkable look on her face as she lay back, eyes shut, breathing heavily. He would have willingly stood leaning over her for an eternity, but his arms were complaining, and he was too exhausted to continue supporting himself. With a final show of strength, he pulled himself from her body and pulled himself up onto the counter beside her. She immediately laid a hand on his thigh, as though that was the extent of what her energy would permit, and he leaned back next to her, shutting his eyes and not thinking about a thing.

When breathing slowed, and flushes receded, and muscles regained the ability to support their weight, they sat up.


	3. In Which There Is An Awkward Silence

Severus slid off the counter, wanting to avoid the awkward silence that was sure to ensue. He looked around the room for his boxers, and after pulling them on, hunted for his wand.

When he turned back to her, to scourgify the counter, he was surprised to she was still sitting there, perched on the edge, swinging her legs and looking at him with her head tilted, a perplexed half-smile tilting her mouth. He raised his wand, as if in explanation, because he had no fucking clue what he was supposed to say. Apologize, maybe? But she had initiated it.

She jumped off the counter, and he cast the spell, watching as the shiny layer of sweat that coated the surface vanished.

He started slightly when she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and rested her cheek against his spine. He brought his hands up, unsure about what he was supposed to do with them (for standing still seemed decidedly cold). He finally settled on laying them over her arms, wrapping his fingers in hers.

After a long minute, she pulled back, softly kissing the spot on his spine just under his shoulder blades. That one touch, a fleeting glance of her lips on his damp skin, almost brought him to his knees, a feat only two men had ever accomplished before.

He turned to face her, keeping one of her hands in his, tangling his fingers in hers as though that simple knot would hold them together.

She smiled slightly, still naked, glancing down at the floor before meeting his eyes again. He realized then that this hadn't been easy for her, to be so effortless about her seduction. She had probably spent days working up to this, debating with herself whether it would be a mistake. The idea floored him, the thought that she was as uncertain about this as he was; she was just better at hiding it.

"Can I come to dinner?" he blurted out before he realized what he was asking.

_Oh gods, please say yes._

She nodded, a flush creeping up to her cheeks.

"I've... I've never done anything like that before," she said hesitantly, gesturing half-heartedly at the countertop.

He wrapped a hand around the back of her skull and stepped to her, bringing his lips down to meet hers, kissing her with what was perhaps not sweetness, but at least an abject sort of longing.

She wrapped her free hand around his hip, tugging him to her for a brief moment, before she pulled back.

"I'll head home now, then," she said softly, studying his face carefully. "I'll see you around seven?"

He released her, nodding, and watched as she got dressed. When she was done, she looked back at him and raised her hand in a sort of almost-wave, before turning and walking quickly out the door.


	4. In Which Our Hero Ponders

_**We'll fast forward to a few years later**_  
_**And no one knows except the both of us**_  
_**And I have honoured your request for silence**_  
_**And you've washed your hands clean of this.**_

_Hands Clean, by Alanis Morissette_

**:::::**

As Severus walked to Hermione's house, a bottle of deep red wine in hand, he thought. This, in itself, wasn't at all an unusual occurrence. Severus _thought_ constantly, whenever he was spared a moment of time in relative peace he would use it thinking feverishly about the flaws in his latest idea, or different potions, or thinking about runes that could be used to manipulate the meaning of a substance. Severus Snape did not have epiphanies—he simply thought constantly, and the sheer volume of his firing neurons resulted in remarkable results.

No, the unusual thing about this was what he was thinking about. He was imagining the future, something he hadn't done in years. When your future is, more likely that not, soon going to cease to exist, it's not something you waste much of your time daydreaming about.

But, he decided as he walked, pacing carefully down the dirt road, this… _thing_ with Hermione warranted at least a little bit of forethought.

He wanted her. This was undisputable, and he had known for weeks. Nor was it a question of how much he wanted her, or for how long he would. He already knew, with the perfect lack of doubt he had always had when it came to his own mind, that it was desperately, and for as long as possible.

So then, the problem that he was stumbling upon was that it seemed very, very unlikely that a woman, not much more than a girl, really, would want him in the same way.

_It could be secret_, his mind suggested. _Keep it quiet and then if it fails, no one will know._ But the flaw in that was that he would know, and _she_ would know. Even if no one found out, it would be devastating.

Years from now, if they tried and failed, their relationship probably wouldn't register as much but a distant memory. She had so many chances, so many opportunities stretching ahead of her. This was his last big one, his last that mattered.

But he had reached her doorstep, and resolutely, though he was still conflicted, he raised his hand to knock.


End file.
